July 20, 2021
Growth
How is this child about 3/5 my height????
My parenting growth: I caught myself saying “see? Wasn’t that much easier than you made it out to be??” to Smol and stopped before I committed to it. It reminded me of all the similar sounding comments people make when you come out of your shell and try something, which just makes me never want to try again. I changed it to “well, look at that. I’m glad you tried it!”
Responsibility
JB is on this kick where they are trying to stay up until midnight. WHY. (“Because I’m a vampire!” Great. Just great.) I guess it doesn’t matter much during the summer, and it’s fine if it’s just a phase, but I definitely don’t want to be dealing with this when school starts up again. I did enjoy siccing a happy Smol on their sleeping sibling early one morning though. Revenge for all those early morning wake ups when they divebombed me! Muahahahah.
*****
Being back in the real world is hard. We walked through an unexpected craft fair, and JB saw some really cool things. This would have been fine but their friend also saw the really cool things and their parents bought some for them. We did not. JB was JEALOUS. AND MAD. I sympathized but we weren’t paying $50+ for an unbudgeted impulse buy. We’ve had many talks about picking and choosing where we spend our money, and accepting that we’re going to feel disappointed from time to time while we focus on our bigger goals, and they do remember those principles. But we’re all going to learn to live with feeling the actual disappointment as we actually experience this in real life.
They were able to set it aside and go play with their friend but I know we’ll have a lot more of these kinds of talks and incidents as we ease back into being around other people and seeing what other kids and parents do that we don’t do.
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June 22, 2021
Growth
We’ve had to have the “don’t catch things with blades when they fall” talk. After they tried to catch a five-bladed razor when it was knocked off a shelf. š¤¦š»āāļø We then had a talk about bandaging technique and clotting.
*****
Why do parents say “I’m not going to say this again” when we absolutely will be saying it again?
*****
JB had a big fuss-fit over being told to write up their notes after a Spanish lesson. I was frustrated that after a lot of lessons, they still haven’t retained hardly anything. They were angry about having to copy down notes from the class notes to practice later.
After a cooldown period we sat down and talked. They complained that they didn’t WANT to have to write the words and they didn’t WANT to have to practice and they HATE writing.
I didn’t argue about whether they do or don’t hate writing. I don’t think they do but that’s beside the point. Instead, we had a long talk about how learning something new is always at least a little frustrating and it’s always going to require some struggle and being challenged and that for important things, we don’t give up on it because it’s important and still worth doing. I reminded them that writing was hard, learning to read took years, learning to ride a bike was frustrating but all of those things have resulted in their having so much fun getting to pick up new stories, getting to send mail to people, getting to ride bikes with their friends when we don’t get to do much else.
At first they were resistant because they wanted to fuss about how they HATE writing unless it’s getting to do her own thing but they really love riding bikes with friends and that they’re allowed to independently create correspondence that people like receiving so that turned it around.
I didn’t say it wasn’t hard to learn, just that it’s worth doing even though it can be hard. And there are things in life we will pick and choose to do. We don’t have to do everything. But the important things, even for adults, we have to stick with.
I shared that I have to learn hard things at work that I don’t like, too! It’s not easy and it’s not fun but sometimes, some things, you just gotta do. Even if you can’t see the payoff right now, there is often something pretty cool as a result of that effort later. An old friend and former teacher invited us to spend time at his house in Mexico. They can go make friends in Mexico if they learn Spanish! (This is where knowing your audience is key. That proposal for me would have fallen flat.) They perked up a little: I haven’t gotten to make new friends in a long time!
Exactly! How cool would that be to sing songs with a new friend in Spanish?
So we gotta try. Not for everything, for the important stuff, but we have to find a way. It doesn’t mean we keep doing the exact same thing, we’ll talk to the teacher and see if we can change our approach a little, but we’re not going to quit and we ARE going to try and practice.
I told them that I didn’t get to learn how to ride a bike so I don’t get to have that fun! They offered to teach me so I took the opportunity to point out that if they were teaching me, how would they feel if I flopped over and said no, I don’t want to try, I don’t like practicing, I don’t WANT to?
They seem to see that would be frustrating for a teacher and that we should practice respecting each other’s time by putting in effort and practicing.
Language
The last letter game. JB’s friend taught them a game where you pick a word and the next person has to pick a word that starts with the last letter of your word. So: hawk. Knight. Timpani. Italian. Noble. Elephant.
JB and PiC play it constantly and I’ve noticed an awful lot of common words end in n, e and t so when I play, I work really hard to find words that end in more interesting letters.
*****
They hear a fair bit of (light) cursing type language out in the wild, whether on TV or passing by other people talking or what have you. I’ve taken the stance that curse words aren’t “bad words,” they’re adult words that children aren’t allowed to say because they’re not mature enough to use them with discretion. Slurs are definitely bad words, though.
Responsibility
We’re incentivizing taking the initiative for doing chores and doing chores without whining again. There’s been some backsliding and I don’t want to hear it. But also I’m frustrated that we can’t seem to get one method to stick because we keep forgetting to reinforce it. That tells me the system doesn’t fit our lifestyle and we need to simplify or modify until it does but who exactly has spare brain cells for this?
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May 25, 2021
Growth
This month’s discovery: I’m not going to be able to hang them upside much longer. They’re too big. O_O
Emotionally, they’ve made great leaps and bounds. Some steps forward and some back too, of course. They were practicing mindfulness and communicating what they felt and what they needed. They’re also practicing appropriate choices given time and place.
Culinarily, I’m puzzled how we ended up with a six year old who thinks that when we split food, it should be three ways equally. But they’ve always been that way. The real question is how did a 2 and 3 year old eat adult size portions??
Language
Words have meaning but in JB’s world, they’re all the wrong words: “hitball” for baseball. “Ketchup loaf” for meatloaf.
You’d think they weren’t familiar with the English language. But they’re reading tons! Alvin Ho, Geronimo Stilton, Amelia Bedelia for young readers, Kitty and the Sky Garden Adventure, Superman Family Adventures.
Responsibility
We’ve been refining JB’s responsibilities. We’re not adding a lot, just a few small things here and there, but focusing on having them do a better job of the jobs they do currently have because what’s passable work for a 4 year old isn’t for a 6 year old who has more dexterity and can have more attention to detail. Folding laundry, for one thing, has to be neater. They should be hanging up clothes in the right places where, before, it was fine for them to make it to any closet. Cleaning more thoroughly and taking charge of cleaning up their own bigger messes: It’s easy to be in the habit of doing the big stuff because we’re adults but we want to be mindful to keep building their skills.
We’re also working on pushing them to take the initiative, in chores and in entertaining themselves.
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April 27, 2021
Nesting
Not me, JB. One of their favorite things to do since the pandemic started is making up their bed. I don’t mean making the bed in the traditional sense. I mean creating a giant nest atop their bed with every pillow they can get their hands on.
It’s escalated to thieving blankets from various parts of the house.
Responsibility
JB had a ton of chores over last summer to train them to be a contributing member of the family at an age appropriate level. It didn’t completely eliminate the whining but it cut down on most of the foot dragging and related whining. Now that Smol has arrived, and Seamus has gone š, I’ve reduced their regular chores to laundry, cleaning, and putting up clean dishes because these happen more frequently than before but I also want to make time for them to spend time with Smol. They’re already at a point where Smol would rather spend their waking hours with JB than anyone else and JB adores hauling this sibling sack o’ potatoes around so that’s good for all of us.
I have added things like loading the dishwasher when clearing their dishes, though, it’s good for them to keep adding life skills to their repertoire.
They also occasionally declare TODAY IS CLEANING DAY and pull out the Clorox wipes and go to town scrubbing the tiles or the countertops. I’m ok with this.
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April 13, 2021
I’ve been thinking on this a lot for the past couple of months. Nicole and Maggie’s question prompted me to get on it!
We know we’re not traveling this summer. So many reasons:
- As of last week, there is an expectation that the state will mostly open up on June 15th, but…we’re not on any vaccination lists yet. Kaiser will tell us when they have enough vaccines, for now it’s nowhere in sight.
- Smol Acrobat is just an infant in the first rounds of their own regular vaccinations so we’re not risking their exposure to anything right now either.
- There aren’t any vaccines for JB’s age yet either.
- We have family who are vaccine hesitant for a variety of reasons that include complex medical histories and the mess that the CDC has made of messaging. I hope that they will change their minds as this year unfolds but I know it won’t be before summer. So we cannot rely on herd immunity.
Besides all that, my soul is NOT ready to plunge into the frantic make-up socializing that is on the horizon as people get vaccinated and burst out onto a social scene like the freaking Kool-Aid man through a wall. (See: the people who aren’t getting vaccinated and we won’t know who they are.)
We’re staying home and staying remote, then! I used Spring Break as our test case for the summer.
JB is pretty good at keeping themselves occupied but we have to work so we wanted to have some plans for their social interaction that doesn’t depend on me or PiC. (more…)
March 30, 2021
Consequences
JB was a big grump about having me trim part of their hair. It’s no fun for me, either. They won’t stay still, they won’t look up, they keep whining. Finally I warned them that they had better stay still and look up for a full minute, but since they didn’t, I just chopped large chunks out of their hair and let them go inside. It was 2 minute cut and it showed.
They burst inside: Dad look! It wasn’t even that long, I’m all done!
PiC: Great! Looks great!
They ran out of the room. He turns to me and mouthed: WHAT HAPPENED???
It was really that bad. But too bad! If they didn’t want a hack job, they should try standing still for more than 0.2 seconds.
From our perspective
We’ve had some good talks about parenting lately. Of course these stem from frustration and conflict, which doesn’t feel good, but from conflict comes understanding and growth for all of us. We’re trying to do our best to parent in a non authoritarian way and that’s completely uncharted territory in both our experiences. We tend to repeat what we know because that’s easiest and familiar. Going away from that deliberately means we’re writing new to us paths and feeling our way sometimes. The good thing is we talk through our conflicts as much as we can and try our best to create new patterns. Sometimes it feels like the stakes are lower for me because JB cares so much more about what PiC thinks, says, and does than me. It lowers the pressure when I screw up. They don’t have a problem having a rough time with me and saying it’s a rough time or acknowledging later that they know it was a frustrating time.
*****
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March 16, 2021
We watch too much Moana
JB is constitutionally incapable of eating a banana without saying after their first bite, “You’re NO ONE’s hero.”
PiC does it too.
Missing Seamus
JB has known about loss at a little bit of a distance for a long time. They know my mom died a long while ago, they know their great grandparents have died in the past few years. They know our friends’ dogs have died. They’ve been to three funerals. That was all academic.
Nothing comes close to the tearing emptiness of losing Seamus. Not even a little.
“Thinking about him doesn’t fill my bucket,” they sobbed.
No. Thinking of his memories still makes me cry a lot too. The memories are just too fresh.
I still reflexively look for him when I go from one room to the next. I still reflexively reach for his head when I pass by his bed.
They cry for him most nights of the week and we talk about him a lot.
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